Jason Dempsey on the counterinsurgency—COIN—mission and the end game in Afghanistan. Dempsey, who was an officer at the battalion and brigade level, did tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has served as a combat advisor to the Afghans and has taught at West Point. He was in Afghanistan when Bowe Bergdahl was captured and went back again in 2012 and 2014.

Bowe Bergdahl said he planned to cause a DUSTWUN by leaving his outpost, OP Mest, and running—or at least walking—to his base, FOB Sharana. This map (push play to fly over the area) gives a sense of the terrain he would have had to cross.